Weekly in-season Updates
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October 10, 2005 Talkin’ Cotton by Shane Osborne Cooler days are here. This past week we had our first really significant cool front bringing night time temperatures down into the 40’s. This will drastically slow things down from here on out. It would not be uncommon to see cotton that might have been ready in 4-5 days of good warm weather end up taking 10-12 days instead. Southern cotton production is approximately 3-4 weeks away from our average freeze date of November 7th whereas the northern production areas might expect a freeze closer to mid-October (right around the corner). From this point on, harvest aid decisions should be made with the 7-10 day forecast in mind. Approaching freeze dates can definitely create a problem, but they are also an opportunity to save some money. As mentioned in last week’s issue, a few days of warm sunny weather 7 to 10 days prior to a freeze is a prime opportunity to shift dollars spent on defoliants towards an increased rate of a boll opener. The savings comes from the increased rate of boll opener being cheaper than the cost of the defoliant. It seems that much of the state’s dryland acreage took advantage of late-season rainfall and developed a fairly nice top crop that’s worth waiting for. There may be several fields that qualify for this “boll opener + mother nature” harvest aid treatment. As usual, for some products, cooler temperatures dictate changes in adjuvant choices. Products that allow the option of using either an NIS (non-ionic surfactant) or crop oil typically work better under cooler conditions with crop oil. However, remember that some product labels strictly dictate what type of adjuvant should be used. For instance, only NIS should be used when applying products containing paraquat (Gramoxone Max, Cyclone or Cyclone Max, etc.). Bottom line, reading product labeling is still required.
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